


Fic: False

by sasha_b



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2013-09-10
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>How do you square that?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic: False

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 60 Prompts in 60 Days challenge (ain't gonna happen, but I'm happy to do one) on [](http://nbc-revolution.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://nbc-revolution.livejournal.com/)**nbc_revolution**. Really great community and all feedback is appreciated. Emo!Bass for the win. ;)
> 
> warnings: suicidal thoughts, language, SPOILERS for season one.

He’s a fake. A phony, and an outcast and he knows it. Time was, Monroe knew who he was and he played it to the hilt. He was a lothario, a lady’s man, a guy’s guy and he was fun to be around and he drank like he was living his last day and he lived and fucked and breathed like tomorrow would be gone every time he went to bed.

And then it was.

He keeps things hidden, from the men that serve him, from the women that sometimes visit his bunk at night, from the civilians that live under his protection.

When the sun sets over Philly, most evenings he drinks a single malt whiskey with whichever officer is with him – it makes morale look good – and after dismissing the man or woman, he stays outside, knowing there are snipers watching him, there are men guarding his encampment and he drinks the whiskey and feels nothing. He waits for the setting of the sun and waits to feel –

Something, a glimmer of his past glory, a snatch of a tiny smile that he’d perfected in Basic, coached by Miles and now he’s –

Empty, a husk that has blown whichever direction Miles had chosen since the day he’d sat in a tiny cemetery and contemplated joining his family in their forever sleep.

_I got nothing left. I got nothing._

He’d cried then, cried for his lost sisters and parents, had sobbed into his hands and onto the dirt and into Miles’ neck after the other man had said _well, you’ve got me_ and he remembers this as he drinks his drink (with ice) and watches the pink and blue and orange and rust clouds that scud across the sky with the setting of the sun. He’s a fake, running this most powerful militia (fuck off, Georgia, you’ll get yours) and he knows it and yet he can’t do a damn thing about it.

Because Miles is gone and Monroe is nothing and no one without him. And he can’t stand this, and he doesn’t know what to do about it, except keep on going, because he can’t make the choice he’d almost made in the cemetery and leave all this behind. Some days he wants to, he wants to fold up in a tiny ball and leave everything to Jeremy or Tom Neville (who creeps him out, to be honest) and either strike out for wherever the hell Miles went or take his Marine issue gun and finish whatever this stupid existence is.

“Sir.”

“Yes, Tom.”

“You should come inside. The bugs are getting bad.”

He laughs, and finishes his drink. “Thank you, Captain, but I think I can handle a few mosquitoes. Go on home to your family, now.” It’s not debatable.

Neville salutes him and Monroe returns it perfunctorily, and the other man is gone just as Monroe turns around and misses the sun setting. He curses and the glass in his hand cracks as he squeezes it, squeezes hard and it _pops_ and his hand is cut by a shard as long as his thumb. He lets the blood patter to the ground, the waist high concrete fencing holding him as he leans forward, eyes straining, light blue lasering into the suddenly appearing night, fuck he’s missed it, missed the end of the day and he’s angry at himself and Miles and the situation and he doesn’t understand and that’s the worst thing of all.

He doesn’t _understand_. He’s done everything for Miles. He’d do anything for the other man even still. And here he is now, running this militia they started together alone – not that he can’t, he’s damn good at it and always was – but it is not the same and he closes his eyes and listens to the blood _dripdrop_ onto the ground, the concrete baked and soaking it up, and he wants to cry like he had sitting on the ground next to the four fresh graves but he can’t, because Miles isn’t there to catch the tears with his fingers or shoulder.

_I mean, what the hell would I be without you?_

Each night that he can, Monroe watches the sun set and wonders if the next day will bring Miles back, realizing he’s been stupid to leave – stupid to try and hurt Monroe – and he sees the stars rise and hopes that maybe, if he gives enough to this disgusting and broken and pathetic new order he can have back the one thing he’d been left when his family had been taken from him.

He’s spent his whole life giving and giving and being slapped down at every turn. Two tours, sacrifice and no real relationship to speak of, no family, no nothing left but the friendship and the one thing he’d be willing to go through all of it again for. He loved Miles. He loves Miles. And Miles tried to kill him.

And he doesn’t get the why and he’s confused and he’s spent months being confused, years really, and he fucking hates it, and he’s the head of this all powerful thing that is the one thing that stands between them and chaos and he doesn't want it, really, in his heart of hearts. Miles had been the one to start it. Miles, when he’d saved Jeremy and had killed those drifters saying _we can’t call the cops_ and he’d scared the shit out of Monroe but gradually, finally, Monroe had gotten it, had agreed, and he’d killed again and again to protect what he and Miles had built and he thought that’s what Miles had wanted.

The sun’s gone for sure, and he wipes his bloody hand on his neat uniform pants – someone will clean them for him – and allows his brain to go to that one memory he keeps for each evening after the natural light is gone and all he can think of is _I can get the power back, I HAVE to get it back_ and _I love Miles and he tried to kill me._

One time, just one time they’d been together like he hadn’t ever dared to even contemplate, and yeah, it was weird and he’d been awkward and both of them hadn’t really known what to do, but they’d done it, and Monroe went to that little pocket in time almost every night after the sun had gone and he remembered Miles surrounding him, and no matter the fact he’s a strong Marine and he’d done two tours in one of the toughest places in the world and he’d survived the death of everything he’d known, no matter that – he’d found in that one night peace for the first time in a long time.

His eyes are closed, the blistering blue shuttered by lids, and he thinks about Miles’ hands and the other man’s smile and his stupid giant feet and the way his military issue pants had always hung on his flat ass and how Miles, for such a taciturn and man of few words had said a few things during those few hours that Monroe had tattooed on his heart and would never forget.

He’s been outside too long.

He opens his eyes and turns calmly and retreats to his office, his hand knitted, the broken glass left outside for someone to clean up. He closes the huge glass doors and the office is warm from the lamps and burning candles and he sits down behind his desk and begins to go through the missives and post that sits there, waiting for him like lost little children, answers needed to make them live.

He wakes once that night from a dream of laughing girls, his hands tousling their hair, his father clapping him on the back and saying something along the lines of _you sure you don’t want to see it with us?_ and he feels his face in the extreme darkness of his room, the dripping tears making his normally serious countenance crumple with shame and he’s not Monroe for a brief moment – he’s just Bass, and he misses his friend with a heart stopping painful breath and this world is full of heathen awful shattered ridiculous cruelty and he hates it so very much without Miles there with him.

He sobs for exactly thirty seconds, and then Bass is gone and Monroe is there and he gets up out of bed, and pads to the desk and lights a lamp and licks his lips and sits and bends his head to the task at hand. His short sleeves show off his tan skin, and the black tattoo on his forearm is still dark despite the years of exposure.

He won’t watch the sun set tomorrow.


End file.
